Bruce Pardo

It was nearing midnight when a large man emerged from his rented blue Dodge and approached a brick home at the end of a cul-de-sac in Covina. He wore a handmade Santa Claus suit with boot-covers, belt, beard, glasses and gloves. Hardly suspicious. It was Christmas Eve. But underneath were black street clothes, five 9-millimeter handguns and $17,000 in cash plastic-wrapped to his body. He was pulling a compressor wrapped in Christmas paper and primed with high-octane fuel.